Persons who are interested in shooting and in guns generally find it desirable to inspect the condition of a gun barrel bore, especially bores having rifling, to determine the condition of the bore and to determine the cleanliness of the bore. A widely-accepted method of inspecting a rifle bore is to place a white patch at the end of the bore or even on a thumbnail, with light impinging on the patch or thumbnail, and to look down the bore from the muzzle end of the barrel to inspect the condition of the bore for cleanliness and for pits, scoring or other defects in the bore. Although this time-honored method has been widely used, persons who are familiar with the inspection of bores find that it is desirable to have a higher intensity of light in the bore in order to provide sufficient light for a careful inspection.
The patent art discloses an apparatus for providing light in the breech end of a barrel for illuminating a bore in U.S. Pat. No. 2,403,452. The illuminator in this instance is a piece of bent plastic material made of methyl methacrylate, which emits light along the device. The problem with a direct transmission of light is that the viewer has the light directed against the viewer's eye, thereby making it uncomfortable to inspect the bore and having a substantial amount of glare, which requires a long and tedious inspection in order to make the inspection carefully without missing a small pit in the bore, which may be the source of a problem. It is an object of this invention to provide a gun barrel bore illuminator which may be easily positioned in the breech of a gun and provides a virtually no-glare illumination for the bore. The construction of the present illuminator is an improvement on the flashlight attachment shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,184,589.